US and Afghanistan poised to sign security pact

September 30, 2014 11:09 am

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US soldiers inspect the site of a suicide attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on September 16, 2014/AFP

By AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE, KABUL, Sep 30 – Afghanistan will on Tuesday sign a long-delayed security deal to allow some US troops to stay in the country next year, signalling that newly inaugurated President Ashraf Ghani intends to repair frayed ties with Washington.

Hamid Karzai, who stepped down as president on Monday, refused to sign the deal in a disagreement that symbolised the breakdown of Afghan-US relations after the optimism of 2001 when the Taliban were ousted from power.

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“The BSA (bilateral security agreement) will be signed tomorrow, not by the president but by a senior minister,” Daoud Sultanzoy, a senior aide of Ghani’s, told AFP.

“The signing sends the message that President Ghani fulfils his commitments. He promised it would be signed the day after inauguration, and it will be.

“It shows the president’s commitment to the Afghan security forces and confidence in our future relationship with the US. We are replacing uncertainty with certainty.”

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed that the two countries had agreed to sign the deal.

US Ambassador James Cunningham will be “signing on behalf of the United States,” she said.

“This will enable Afghanistan, the United States and the international community to maintain the partnership we’ve established to ensure Afghanistan maintains and extends the gains of the past decade,” Psaki told reporters.

The BSA will be signed at the presidential palace in parallel with a similar agreement between Afghanistan and NATO.

Troops from Germany, Italy and other NATO members will join a force of 9,800 US soldiers, bringing numbers up to about 12,500.

After NATO’s combat mission ends in December, the new mission named Resolute Support will focus on training and support for the Afghan army and police as they take on the Taliban insurgents.

Negotiations over the pact saw Karzai at his most unpredictable as he added new demands, shifted positions and infuriated the United States, Afghanistan’s biggest donor.

He eventually refused to sign the agreement despite a “loya jirga” grand assembly that he convened voting for him to do so, and widespread public support for US troops to stay.

On the campaign trail, both Ghani and his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah vowed to reverse Karzai’s decision.

Washington had threatened to pull all US forces out by the end of the year, but it chose to wait through a long election deadlock until Afghanistan finally got a new president on Monday.

With the Taliban on the advance in many provinces, NATO support next year is seen as essential despite Afghan troops making rapid strides.

The failure to sign a similar deal with Iraq in 2011 led to a complete withdrawal of US troops from the country, which is now engulfed in Islamist violence.

There are currently about 41,000 NATO troops in Afghanistan, down from a peak of 130,000 in 2012.

In his inauguration speech, Ghani called for the Taliban to join peace talks after 13 years of war.

The militant group, which dismissed the election as a US plot, has often said it will fight on until all foreign troops have left Afghanistan.

The security threat in Kabul was underlined on Monday by a suicide attack outside the airport’s main entrance that killed four members of the Afghan security forces and three civilians shortly before the inauguration.

On Tuesday, Ghani started his first day in office with a visit to schools in Kabul.

The ceremony at the presidential palace marked the country’s first democratic transfer of power, though the UN said the election was beset by “significant fraud”.

US President Barack Obama has previously announced that should the deal be signed the US force will be halved by the end of next year, before being reduced to a normal embassy presence by the end of 2016.

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE Agence France-Presse is a global news agency delivering fast, in-depth coverage of the events shaping our world from wars and conflicts to politics, sports, entertainment and the latest breakthroughs in health, science and technology.